Staying busy while the United States Supreme Court weighs the very future of their company, engineers for upstart subscription video on demand service Aereo said they were working out bugs in a new player app for Google Chromecast (NASDAQ: GOOG) and that the app wouldn't be released as planned Thursday.
The new target day is next week, June 4, according a company tweet picked up by Multichannel News Thursday.
"We are delaying release of Chromecast support to June 4 to work out a few kinks. Bummed about the delay, but next week is gonna rock!" the tweet reads.
The High Court is expected to announce in June--or perhaps sooner--a decision as to whether Aereo's business model, challenged by the leading broadcast networks, is legitimate. Aereo's chief investor, Barry Diller, has suggested a negative ruling might end the company.
Of course, anyone who has been following Aereo's case knows a positive ruling will have broad impact on the pay TV industry, notably affecting the negotiations for broadcast re-transmission rights paid by cable, satellite and telco service providers.
Until that decision is made, the handful of Aereo subscribers in the 12 cities the SVOD service is currently available in--which include, New York, Dallas, Houston, Boston and Atlanta--are awaiting Aereo's debut on what has become a major online video player device, Chromecast.
Aereo already has apps for iOS devices, as well as for Android in beta form, and it already supports Roku and Apple TV players.
For more:
- see this Aereo tweet
- read this Multichannel News story
Related links:
Aereo vs. broadcasters: Start of Supreme Court review is inconclusive
Aereo preps Google Chromecast app for May 29 launch date
Rabbit TV jumps into live streaming, while Aereo's Diller 'confident' after Supreme Court hearing